WHERE IS RURAL AMERICA HEADING?

Demographers lament the difficulty of predicting where population trends are heading at anytime, but especially at this point in the decennial census cycle, as we find ourselves in the shadow of the 2000 census. Hampered by a diminished view of where we have been (much less where we are going), we eagerly await the detailed demographic, housing, social, and economic information that is only available once every 10 years. What we do know from population estimates and economic data that are available between censuses is that, for most of the past decade, rural America has been in a period of growth and prosperity. More people are moving in from urban centers than are moving out. Falling unemployment, growing per capita incomes, and rising weekly earnings for rural workers indicate the continuation of a positive economic climate, though recently employment and population growth have been slowing down. We also know that rural areas continue to be placed at a disadvantage by the small size and relative isolation of rural settlement; traditional rural-based industries are declining as generators of jobs and income; the rural-urban earnings gap is still large and even widened in the 1990's; very high levels of poverty remain in regions throughout the country; and low-wage rural workers face increasingly fierce global competition. Moreover, the economies of individual rural areas differ greatly, as do th